Monday, 23 October 2017

Generally speaking, I detest "no bake" recipes...they are up there with "no sugar" recipes (which invariably have a metric tonne of sugar, just not in the granulated form...I think the record I saw was a "no bake sugar-free cake" that was in fact 35% by weight pure sugar (the rest being a mix of nuts, fat and other vaguely grim items)...

...however,I was in need of some easy-to-handle calories for a ride planned on a Sunday, and I'd been the victim of poor planning, and had nothing to hand. I had a quick look around online, and then did some adjustments based on what was sitting in the cupboard, and came up with these. I did a small batch, as you don't really want a lot of sweet, tasty carbohydrate-rich snacks lying around!

I did some maths, and if you make 9 bites from the batch they are 100-110 calories/20-22g each. Each "bite" was about an inch across, and good for a single mouthful. This means that they are good for ride food at the rate of about 2 bites/hour.

No-Bake Energy Bites - Recipe

Ingredients

80g rolled oats

40g sultanas

2g cinnamon powder

1g ground nutmeg

½g salt

35g honey

70g almond butter

1) Place all the dry ingredients (oats, sultanas, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt) in a bowl, and stir together to mix

2) Add the honey and almond butter to the bowl
3) Mix until all combined/coated, and is clumping

4) With clean hands, separate into 9 separate balls and firmly roll together

Wednesday, 18 October 2017

I had a bit of time off recently, and had a very pleasant time off in Mallorca. It's traditional to bring back some local goodies for the office, however I found the offerings at the airport somewhat underwheling, so decided instead to make something... I looked up online "spanish cake", and the most common offering was orange and almond...this fitted well for me, as I'd spent a lot of time cycling between orange and almond orchards!

Orange and Almond Cake - Recipe

Pre-heat overn to 160'C

Grease and Line a deep 23cm springform tin with baking parchment

Ingredients

5 eggs

200g caster sugar

225g ground almonds

2 whole oranges (about 300g)

20g water

Flaked Almonds (to decorate)

1) Chop the oranges up (skin, pith and all) and place in a medium sized saucepan with the water

2) Simmer gently for about half an hour with the lid in. The end result should be some soft orange goo, with most of teh excess moisture absorbed

3) Allow the orange to cool slightly, then blitz in a food processor

4) Separate the eggs, and whisk the whites together with 100g of the sugar to form a stiff meringue

5) Beat the yolks with the other half of the sugar to form a thick, creamy mousse.

6) Whisk the cooled orange mixture into the egg yolks

7) Fold the ground almond into the egg yolks

8) Carefully fold the meringue into the egg whites in parts

9) Transfer the final mixture into the prepared tin, and level with a spatula

10) Sprinkle the flaked almonds on top

11) Bake for 45-55 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean. You may need to give it a tin hat to stop the almonds on top browning too much